Piltlahcuiloltzin ixitlauhca

[Jesse Lovegren]

Some thoughts on the definition:

If the vowels are the four /i,e,a,o/ (but I don't know how the modern
variety on which the dictionary is based differs from Classical Nahuatl),
then I wonder whether it is necessary to note that the velum is closed,
since there are only oral vowels.  Also it might be preferable to note that
the jaw is swung wide open rather than that the tongue is at the bottom of
the mouth.  /b/, for example, is also produced with the velum closed and the
tongue at the bottom of the mouth.  But /a/ is the only sound that must be
produced wtih the jaw significantly opened up.  So I think that
articulatory-based definitions for the vowel sounds could be simplified to
something like:

/a/: the vowel with the mouth wide open
/o/: the vowel made with the lips close together and rounded

In the case of /i/ and /e/, there would need to be more than one property
listed to differentiate them, so it wouldn't be as neat a definition as is
possible with /a/ and /o/.
/i/: the vowel made with the front of the tongue close to the palate and the
mouth almost closed
/e/: the vowel made with the front of the tongue close to the palate and the
mouth halfway opened

I'm glad to hear that the dictionary is becoming a reality.

On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 11:31 PM, John Sullivan <idiez at me.com> wrote:

> Piyali listeros,
> One of the difficult things we've been doing lately is to define the
> letters of the alphabet for our monolingual dictionary. Joe Campbell
> participated in this project during the summer. I'm going to present it at
> the Maryland conference next month. I would like to start releasing the
> definitions one per day on this listserv and see what people have to say. So
> here's the long and short "a". Long vowels are shown here with a colon, as
> the macron has demonstrated in the past its ability to send nahuat-l into
> the land of giberish.
> John
>
> A: piltlahcuiloltzin. Quimanextia tentzilincayotl huehueyac tlen caquizti
> quemman motzacua tocopac huan tonenepil yohui tocamatzalan.
>
> A: letter. Represents the long vowel that is heard when the velum closes
> and the tongue moves to the bottom of the mouth.
>
> A. piltlahcuiloltzin. Quimanextia tentzilincayotl cototztzin tlen caquizti
> quemman motzacua tocopac huan tonenepil yohui tocamatzalan.
>
> A. letter. Represents the short vowel that is heard when the velum closes
> and the tongue moves to the bottom of the mouth.
>
>
>
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>


-- 
Jesse Lovegren
Department of Linguistics
645 Baldy Hall
office +1 716 645 0136
cell +1 512 584 5468
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